Remove the Mask
by klaineismylife88
Summary: Lucy helps Frank when she finds out about his past. For good or bad she wants to be there for him. This is probably going to be a oneshot, unless I get some demands for more.


Lucy crawled out from under a train, taking a quick look around to see if any of the inspectors were lurking nearby. She let out a low whistle and listened hard for the response from Tricky. It came back in the form of two shorter whistles. _All clear_. Lucy shouldered the bag she had stocked under the carriage and darted away from the train, slipping between a few more as she ran. She saw the flash of Tricky's red hat on the other side of the tracks for a second before she rolled under a barrier. Lucy kept running and there wasn't much further to go until they were safe. Her friend jumped into the lane next to her with a tiny grunt. She twisted her body slightly to avoid a light signal before she saw the luminous paint. Two lines sprayed onto the brick wall ahead that lined the edges of the subway – they were just about a metre long, and low down so they were barely noticeable unless you were looking for them. The two girls threw themselves into the darkened corner that should have been a solid wall, but had actually been hollowed out for maintenance several months ago and had been abandoned by the workers and never filled in. The Subway Surfers and taken over the place while they were in the grotty side of New York – they were planning on moving again in the next month or so, but nothing was definite yet. Jake was in charge of this, even if Spike gave him some dirty looks sometimes. The two girls rolled across the floor, and finally slowed to a standstill.

"Did you get the stuff we needed?" Jake's voice floated over as his shoes came into view not far from her eye level on the floor. She and Tricky stood up, and she held out the bag for him. He quickly pulled the zips and emptied the contents onto the ground. Out fell a few bags of shopping, some batteries, several bits of material and a couple pieces of clothing. They had all put together the money they found on the tracks and in carriages and sent Lucy off to get some food and essentials.

"I had to guess sizes, sorry." She apologised

"It's alright. I'll put these in the fridge. Spike ran off again."

"You have got to be kidding me!?" complained Tricky. She had Jake were brother and sister, with him being a year older than her. Spike had this on/off kind of relationship with Jake, and they argued a lot, with Spike leaving them pretty regularly and then showing up again a week or so later. He was the dark and moody type, and seemed to have a large amount of pent up anger sitting in his head, which he tended to aim at Jake.

"How is the new one doing?" asked Lucy. They had picked up a new member a couple of days ago, and man named Frank that always wore a mask, even in front of them. He also seemed rather fond of his suit. He had been running over a train and tripped, sending him flying off the locomotive. Lucy had seen this and gone to help him and they kind of took him in. She was the makeshift doctor of their group, despite her youthful looks; she was actually in her early twenties and had spent some time in medical school before becoming a surfer. But that was in the past now. Frank had injured his shoulder and twisted an ankle, so she had been looking after him.

"Take a look for yourself." Jake turned away and wandered over to the area that could be described as a kitchen, but wasn't anything more than a stolen fridge-freezer and small fire with some plates stacked in a corner. Lucy walked over to where the 'rooms' were. Each person had a kind of living quarters that were separated by hanging blankets and corrugated iron, so they had at least a little privacy. Bathrooms were a different story. One area had been blocked off for Frank. She tapped on the metal.

"Frank? It's me. I just wanted to see if you were ok." She heard the clicking of fingers, allowing her entry. That was the thing with Frank. He didn't speak. Lucy wasn't even sure if he could. She had never seen his face; she had never heard him speak. So instead of telling her that she could come in, he could click his fingers. Lucy pushed aside a blanket and poked her head around to see Frank sitting in his vest and trousers, sewing up a hole in his shirt. What struck her about him was that, not only the care he was putting into mending his shirt, but the fact that she could see what had previously been covered by said shirt. The strong muscles in his arms and broad shoulders, the way his chest moved to match his deep breaths. _Wow. _Her eyes went wide for a second before returning to normal when her brain told her she had been staring too long_. _Lucy upturned a bucket and sat on it, facing him. "How are you feeling?" he gave her a thumbs up. "Good. I take it your shoulder is better – you took off the sling." To try and take the pressure off his shoulder she had made him a sling from the bow that normally wrapped around her waist. The dress itself had a small corset on top, so the bow was just for decoration, rather than keeping the dress up. He pointed behind her, and she turned to see the red sash, hanging over a low wire. "Thank you," she said, picking up the length of material. Frank was still intently sewing along the seam with a careful over-stitch to make sure it wouldn't tear again.

"Listen, I don't know how much longer we are going to be in New York for, so when we move on, would you like to come with us? Or do you want to stay here?" Frank didn't answer her for a moment; instead he finished sewing up the hole, and cut the thread with a small penknife. He raised his head as if he were looking at her (not that she could tell) and nodded. "You're going to stay with us?" she asked, just to clarify. He nodded again before standing up. Frank started to put the shirt on, guiding one arm in. He went to put the other in but cringed at the pain in his shoulder, his good hand cradling it gently. "Let me help" Lucy moved behind him, taking the thin material of the sleeve and slowly pulling it over his arm and onto his shoulder. She noticed him stiffen momentarily as her fingers brushed his neck. "Are you ok?" she asked, removing her hands as he slowly did up the buttons. Lucy frowned at the man behind the mask. Frank stared back, waiting for the question she knew she was going to ask eventually. Sure she had asked it before, so had the others, but he hadn't responded. She was the only one that had pressed him for information since then. Until now. "W-why don't you speak? Or show us your face?" she heard the intake of air that would usually come before words, but there was a pause. "You don't have to answer me, its fine. It's just, if you're going to be staying with us, Jake and the others will want to know. And they aren't like me – they're a lot more demanding, and I don't think they'll fully trust you until you show them." Lucy turned to leave and her hand reached out to push the blanket away. He had to tell her. She had been so good to him, and he hadn't offered anything in return.

"It's because I am ashamed." the voice was hoarse and barely a whisper, filled with sadness and fear. Lucy froze, her hand dropping as she turned to face him.

"Why?" Frank hung his head, flopping back down onto his seat.

"It's a long story."

"I'm not going anywhere." she said sincerely, sitting back on the bucket. He sighed quietly. He hadn't spoken to anyone in a while, and it was weird using his voice again.

"It was one of those things that you didn't realise is happening until it's too late. A couple of years ago I met someone. She was lovely and I really liked her. We went out for a while, and eventually got together – but that was when the problems started. I didn't realise this, but emotional abuse is like being put in a box. I thought it was like a treasure box at first – like I was there because I was special and I was the only one she wanted. But the box starts to shrink, and every time I touched the sides we would have an argument. So I tried to make myself fit. I curled up, became smaller and quieter, I tried to remove all the excessive and offensive parts of my personality. I lost contact with my friends and family, changed my interests and behaviour. But the box kept getting smaller – I always thought it was my fault, that everything about me was wrong. I never questioned her, and when she said something horrible, I just assumed it was me that was the problem. I didn't realise I would never fit in that box, that my existence filled the box too much. Som-sometimes, she made m-me have sex with her even though I didn't want to. And people say that men can't get raped but that's wrong. I hated every second of it, but I always thought it was me that was messing it up in my head, like I was creating barriers between us. I always felt so dirty and used afterwards. I would spend hours in the shower under the hottest water and scrub my skin raw to try and feel clean. It never worked. It was like I was one of her possessions – like a pen or something. Not anything special. And when a pen doesn't work it becomes worthless. If I didn't do what she asked, or I forgot, I became it little bit more useless. On the morning of our wedding day she got angry – I don't really remember what it was about. She had hurt me before, punched or kicked me – it was enough to bruise and I only ever got the occasional minor injury. If she had anything to hand she might throw it at me, or scratch me with her nails. If anyone ever asked me I would always deny the real reason behind it – I said I had tripped or I had hurt myself by accident. But this time she had a knife, and she cut me with it. She got me in the face. This was the suit I was supposed to get married in. It was the only clothes I had left after I ran away. I didn't have any money or friends, because she had taken them away. I stole the mask from a shop. I wear it because it hides my face. I don't want to look at it anymore." Lucy had sat silently through the whole of his speech, open mouthed. You heard about cases of domestic abuse all the time, but it was never this way round – it was always the men hurting women. She noticed a tiny droplet of water drip from the bottom of the mask and splash onto his hands which had been clasped in his lap.

"You don't have to look at it, but can I?" she asked quietly. He shook his head, backing away from her, nearly tipping himself off his seat. "Frank! Calm down!" she knelt in front of him, placing her hands on top of his. The floor was cold beneath her stocking covered knees and there were tiny bits of stone digging into her skin, but she didn't care. He could feel how soft and small Lucy's hands were, completely different form his own. "Please." There was no verbal response, so she reached up slowly, giving him every opportunity to stop her. Lucy's slim fingers found the ribbon that tied the mask around the back of his head and fiddled with the knot for a second. She untangled it and gently pulled the mask away. Behind it was the face of a man in perhaps his early twenties, with dark eyes and thoroughly defeated expression. Down one side, starting from his temple was a long half healed cut that made its way all the way down past his ear and onto his cheek. He wouldn't look at her and cast his eyes downwards, staring at his hands. Lucy dropped the mask and cupped her hands around his cheeks, feeling the thickening stubble beneath her fingers. She raised his face so that he had no choice but to look at her. There were tears in his eyes and a few were already glistening on his skin, but she wiped them away with her thumbs. "I am so sorry for what happened to you," she said quietly "And I am so proud that you got away from her. You're very brave, I hope you know that," More water dripped down his face as he closed his eyes, shoulders shaking. On instinct, Lucy pulled him into a hug, making quiet shushing noises in his ear. No one had said anything like that to him in a long time. He had only left a few days ago, but he hadn't had the chance to sort out all the emotions swirling in his head. He didn't have the money for train tickets, and he wanted to get as far away from _her_ as a possible, so jumped on top of subway carriages and took them as far as he could. When he had fallen off and injured himself, Lucy had helped him. Since then he had spent most of his time in the area that the others and made up for him. He had left a couple times, but the rest of the surfers kept asking him questions that he didn't want to answer. "I know this is hard. You're hurt a lot more than physically, and you had every right to hide your face. But you don't need to be ashamed anymore. You survived what happened to you, and that is nothing to be ashamed about. I am so grateful that you told me what happened. You've lost your friends and your family, and that's horrible, but you have us now, and we'll look after you. That box is gone – you can be whatever you want to be."

"Thank you." he whispered into her red hair. Lucy let him go and stared into his face for a moment.

"You are going to need stitches for that, otherwise it's never going to heal properly. I can do it for you." He nodded mutely, not trusting himself to get any words out. Lucy disappeared for a moment to the medicine box (which was basically a mishmash of things they had managed to steal from hospitals). A while ago they had managed to get hold of the metallic/nylon thread they used for stitches, and some antiseptic. Since Lucy was the only one in the group with any medical training, she got to keep the box in her quarters. Frank had sat completely still since she had left, the tears slowly subsiding as he started to regain composure.

"We haven't got much anaesthetic I'm afraid. I'll give you what we can afford to spare – I think Tricky said she would go to the hospital tomorrow to see what she can pick up. Putting in stitches hurts and you will feel a bit tender around there afterwards, but it will help that heal. If you leave it open like that it's going to get infected – I'm actually surprised it isn't already. We haven't exactly got great living conditions down here." She smiled ruefully before tipping his face upwards and slightly to the left so she could get a better look at the cut. Taking some cotton wool, she gently washed the antiseptic over and then filled a small needle with anaesthetic. "Ready?" he nodded and she pressed the tip into the artery by his ear. He flinched at the sudden flash of pain that shot across his face before she withdrew the needle. "There you go. I need to give it a minute to start working." Lucy hummed quietly to herself as she sorted out her needle and thread, pushing the thin length of material through the small hole. She lightly touched around the cut. "Can you feel that?"

"A little bit, but not really."

"Good. Now hold still" Lucy probed the two flaps of skin with her left hand and then held them together so she could sew with her right. Frank was very aware of everything that was happening – he could see it out of the corner of his eye and could kind of feel the needle going in and out, pulling the flaps shut, but it didn't really hurt. If anything it was quite a surreal experience. Frizzy suddenly slammed the metal door open.

"We've got incoming!" the lights snapped out and Frizzy ran back out again. She had barely noticed that Frank wasn't wearing his mask anymore; she was far more worried about getting carted off to jail.

"Shit!" Lucy hissed, the needle still in one hand. Tricky was surprisingly clever for someone of her age, and had created a system that gave them a warning when an inspector came near – or more importantly, one of their dogs. Some of the individual tracks were rigged and when they were set off by something heavy enough, an alarm got relayed back to them in the form of a flashing red light. The whole thing was solar powered and easily portable – so they could move it to wherever they were. Their little home went into shut down. The fire was put out and covered so that the smoke couldn't get into the air, Fresh turned his stereo off and everyone hid, barely daring to breathe. Lucy had been half bent over Frank while she was sewing the cut closed and was extremely uncomfortable, she needed to move ore she was going to fall. She tried to take a step backwards, but half tripped on Frank's foot, toppling over with a curse. He felt a tugging at the side of his head, but it went away just as quickly as it had come.

"Lucy!" came his voice from the dark.

"Sshhh!" They had to be as quiet as possible – that was what was going to get them caught. They had lived here for a while now, so they pretty much smelt like the subway. It masked their true scents from the dogs. But they also have extremely sensitive hearing and they had to be quiet if they didn't want to get caught. Jake had been out front, barely able to see what was going on, but he could hear the inspector coming past. He flattened himself against a wall, trying to swallow the panic that was rising up his throat. Tricky was under 18, and if she got caught down here she would be sent to an orphanage, and they would be split up. He couldn't let that happen. He sucked in a deep breath and held it as he heard the inspector bumbling past_. Come on_, he thought, _keep going_. The torch light flashed into the alcove and nearly hit him before the old man walked on. The dog sniffed around a bit, and Jake was so tempted to reach out and give it a good kick, but that would have given their position away. He let out a long sigh of relief as he heard the animal leave with the inspector and watched them disappear into the dark. He gave it a couple of minutes.

"All clear" he said quietly, and the message was passed around. Their three electric light bulbs flickered back on. By the same system as the alarm, Tricky had created solar powered light bulbs that hung from metal wires. Frank blinked suddenly when the lights came back on a looked down to see Lucy sitting up from the cold ground. When she had fallen she had taken the needle with her and threw her hands out to break her fall. The needle had gone straight into the palm of her hand and dragged across it. Frank could see the tears that were still slipping down her face; she had had to keep quiet the entire time despite the pain in her hand. A small pool of blood had formed on the floor and she was holding her hand gingerly.

"Are you alright?" She sniffed slightly and then stood up

"I'll be fine."

"That doesn't answer my question." Lucy stared at him for a second before she walked out in search of bandages. Frank picked up the needle and found an old rag. He threw it onto the ground in an attempt to soak up some of the blood. Lucy came back in, winding bandages over her hand to hold the gauze in place.

"I need to finish sewing that up. Just let me clean the needle." Lucy dipped some cotton wool in the antiseptic and the rubbed the needle with it. The thread was hanging from Frank's temple and she pushed it back through the hole in the needle. Her fall had given the thread a bit of a viscous tug, so the stitches were very tight now. She had injured her left hand, so continued to use that one to do the easy job of holding his skin together. The anaesthetic was starting to wear off so she worked quickly, Frank only flinching towards the end. She finally finished and Frizzy came in again, without knocking, which seemed to be her forte.

"Lucy did y-" she cut herself off as Lucy whipped her head around and Frank dropped his face into his hands to hide it.

"Frizzy! You can't just barge in on people!" Lucy ushered the other girl out.

"Was that Frank? Damn, he is fine."

"For god's sake, now is not the time!"

"How did you manage to get him to take his mask off?"

"I just talked to him. He speaks Frizzy, and he's been through a lot, so try not to freak him out." Lucy gave her a serious look.

"Ok, I get it!" she said, holding her hands up in mock surrender.

"Frank?" She called out. "Can Frizzy come and talk to you?" She poked her head around. The mask was back on.

"Ok." The two women entered

"Frank, this is Frizzy. She helped me carry you back here after you fell off a train." Lucy gave him a sad look – she had hoped he was going to keep the mask off now. Frizzy stuck out her hand. Frank took hold, shaking the proffered extremity.

"Hello." He said quietly.

"It's nice to meet you." He nodded. Lucy shook her head slightly – after all the progress he had made he had put that mask back on, like he was hiding from her. "Lucy brought some food back; do you want something to eat?"

"Yes please."

"There should be some bread and I think Fresh said he would cook some of the chicken. Then we can freeze the leftovers." Lucy said.

"Ok, I'll be back soon." Frizzy left again and Lucy turned to Frank.

"Why did you put the mask back on?" She asked quietly. Frank sighed.

"I don't know. I don't want them to see me yet."

"Frizzy has already seen you. She barged in earlier, remember? And Why?"

"I'm still, I don't know…nervous?" Lucy pursed her lips and then knelt down in front of him again.

"You don't need to be afraid of any of us. We aren't going to hurt you, I promise. We want to help you get better. You are welcome to stay with us as long as you like, or you can leave and do your own thing, that's up to you. But if you want us to help, you _have_ to let us in. Please." Frank reached up a tugged the ties that held the mask together behind his head. He pulled it away from his face and Lucy took it from him. She stood it up and then snapped the thing over one knee before he could do anything about it.

"Hey!"

"Now you can't hide your face anymore. You don't need to, and you shouldn't. You're very handsome." A slight flush rose in her cheeks as her brain told her to shut up because those words were supposed to stay inside her head.

"But the cut-"

"Doesn't matter. Wounds heal. Scars fade. Being part of the Surfers lets you forget your past so you can focus on the future."


End file.
